1 Taxi-driver Charge Dismissed

Judge Cites Lack Of Evidence In Earlier Slaying

March 21, 1986|By Andy Knott.

A Cook County Criminal Court judge on Thursday dismissed one of two murder charges lodged against a 29-year-old cabdriver whose conduct over the last several years has left police baffled and relatives troubled.

Violence Court Judge Francis Gembala ruled that police had no probable cause to hold Joseph Geist on charges that he fatally shot a Polish immigrant on the Northwest Side at about 6 a.m. on March 13. Another murder charge, accusing Geist of shooting to death an as-yet unidentified man last Sunday, is pending.

Police say the two shootings, which occurred within a dozen blocks of each other, were random attacks.

In both cases, according to police, the victims were walking alone and both were believed to have been shot by a man driving a dark taxicab. Both attacks were unprovoked, police said.

Geist, a cabbie since 1982 and a self-admitted member of the American Nazi Party, was arrested within hours of the second shooting when a witness gave police part of the identification number of the cab seen leaving the area after making a quick U-turn. Geist was still on duty when he was summoned to the cab dispatcher`s office on orders from detectives.

Detective Sgt. William Murray said the police investigation has been hampered by the absence of a link between the victims and the inability to identify the second victim. He said police know nothing about the unidentified man. The victim was wearing blue pants, white athletic shoes and a tan and maroon ski jacket. His hair and new beard are red and his eyes are blue. He was carrying a bag of groceries when he was shot.

The first victim, Edward Sobolewski, 29, lived at 3462 N. Whipple St., in an apartment with several other non-English speaking Poles. All police know is that he entered the United States on Dec. 13 with a 6-month work visa and was a laborer in Elk Grove Village.

Judge Gembala, noting that a witness to the earlier shooting was unable to identify Geist in a lineup, ruled evidence to be too circumstantial to justify charging Geist with Sobolewski`s murder. However, Geist`s attorneys said afterward that they still expect prosecutors to go before the Cook County grand jury and seek a murder indictment next week.

Geist was charged last year with aggravated battery after firing a .32 caliber pistol at the manager of a gay bookstore in the 2800 block of North Broadway. The manager, who was not wounded, said the shooting was unprovoked. Prosecutors later dropped the case because the manager failed to appear in court.

On Wednesday, Geist`s mother said she believed her son needed psychiatric counseling but she also said ``he could never hurt anyone and he had no prejudices that I know of.``

The woman, who has had little contact with her son for the last 10 years and remarried 19 years ago after Geist`s father left the family, said her son was ``argumentative but never violent.

``In the past few years I think he`s needed pyschological help,`` she said. ``In the past few years he has been troubled.``

She said her son dropped out of Mather High School, 5835 N. Lincoln Ave., and worked at several different jobs while living in the Rush Street area.

Since Monday, Geist has been held in Cook County Jail in connection with the Sunday shooting of the as yet unidentified man. Bond was set at $150,000. The unidentified victim was found shot once in the chest in the 3600 block of North Keeler Avenue. Police said the man was returning home from shopping but no identification was found and no missing person report has been filed.

Although bullets that killed both men were found to have been fired from the same gun, the gun has not yet been found, Murray said.

Police said Geist also is a suspect in a similar shooting in the 4300 block of North Clark Street.